An ace up the sleeve as we caught up with David Lloyd [Interview]

Recently some of the gang and I traveled to Leeds to attend Thought Bubble 2014. Our time was split between doing a little shameless self promotion, acquiring (as the kids would say) swag and generally embarrassing ourselves by geeking out at the awesome assemblage of talent that was in attendance.

One of the artists who was there was none other than David Lloyd, the co-creator of V (for Vendetta). David was there promoting his current venture Aces Weekly which is a purely digital comic anthology. In between him doing sketches for fans, I managed to swap some details and arrange an interview for a later date.

DL: “The reason why I started it was because, first off, it was easy, That is the most important thing about [founding] Aces Weekly and for anybody who wants to put stuff out on the web that is telling a story. We are in the 21st century, we don’t need a printing press anymore – That’s all old stuff. You can tell a story to people in a very easy way without having to put it on paper and distribute it on the streets or through stores just by: Drawing it, Making sure the story is told and sticking it on a screen and of it goes across the world! Without any need for shipping, warehousing, printers and publishers will both take your money. IT IS EASY.

That was what attracted me to it, After hearing people had been doing this [going digital] via various platforms I thought well “lets have a go!” and I knew lots of people both well known and not so well known. I thought I would get a bunch of those people together, get some short stories together… The initial plan was to put it on someone elses platform, But when I spoke with my co-founder on the project Bambos Georgiuo and ex-Marvel UK editor and great friend of mine and asked him if he would take on the task of being editor. Bambos said “Why don’t we have our own identity, In hindsight it has turned out to be a hell of a lot of work, not only getting all these guys and girls to put this stuff together but also initiate the website but at the end of the day it is a better thing because we are Aces Weekly, We have our own identify and we are completely unique…”

GK: Do you feel like there is a future in printing or will it basically be completely digital at some point?DL: “It will all be digital at some point but print will still exist because short print runs and indie publishing but in terms of real reaching out to an audience there is no question of it, it is going to be digital in the future. Newspapers [For Example] already can’t get advertising, its all going to go [that way] everyone knows that but in the comic market there is massive resistance to moving to digital. Which I hadn’t anticipated before Aces Weekly, I thought we will get all these guys from print with great reputations and we thought they would just transfer over but no there is massive resistance about moving from paper to digital with comic fans.

Progenitor – By Phil Hester and John Mcrea.Click to enlarge.

GK: Well [following on from that] I was going to ask you how easy was it pulling your contacts. I noticed you were working with folks like John Mcrea [Hitman/The Boys] for example – Was there anyone you approached who were less enthusiastic?

DL: “No, No one was unenthusiastic there were some on board at the beginning who couldn’t come on board (for whichever reason) because the huge hand of fate dropped on a number of people, People moved, had illnesses and all sorts of things happened to the original line up we originally had but everyone involved had to take a gamble – Some people were prepared whilst some other weren’t because we were new. Things have moved so fast, We were a year old as of September 30th but really we began a year before 2012, This was a risky business then but there are more digital comics now, I think [even] Comixology itself is still quite young….”

“I am sure you have had a look at some of the stuff that is there”

GK: Yeah I did do a little research [beforehand]!

DL: “My God! – We wanted to give people the best at the best price we possibly could!, And we are certainly doing that every week and every day. Every edition of Aces costs less than a pound a week compare that to the price of a comic from a comic book store, you couldn’t get better than what we are doing [comparatively].

We spoke about much more including; How he sees the industry, his past in the industry such as working at Warrior, V for Vendetta and the future for Aces Weekly. To catch the rest simply listen to this weeks podcast.

You can find out more about Aces Weekly, including examples of their strips and details of how you can subscribe by going to Acesweekly.com. Plus for you tweeters you can find both David and Aces on Twitter simply go to @LforLloyd and @acesweekly for regular updates.